Chapter 1 – Raven

“Yes, Wil, I should be there shortly.”

“Good! You know, Raven, traveling during all of this...mess. The virus... and I mean, at this time. So close to the holidays.”

“I know...”

“And I know you need to work. You want to work...” 

“Exactly,” I answer distractedly, reassuring my editor for what must be the hundredth time since I decided to get away from the city, that no I don’t mind traveling during the pandemic, and two, working, writing, is exactly what I need right now. It’s all I have left anyway.

Remembering that I wanted to nail down a few last-minute details, I momentarily take my eyes off the road and direct them to the passenger seat to flip between the pages of the moleskin journal I use to keep notes. “Wil, just to clarify before I arrive, your assistant did make the reservation for a no contact check in. Right?” I question, wanting to be certain that I follow the stern guidance I received from my sister, a doctor at New York Presbyterian Hospital, when I told her about my impromptu, escape from the city, plan to get away and finally finish my book. These few utterings are the last full, non-curse words to leave my lips, as my attention is immediately snatched back to the snowy windshield by what I can make out from the corner of my eye is the swift dash of a deer across the road. Gloved hands gripping the steering wheel at 10 and 2, fear grips me, my breath literally stolen from me in the puffs of my shrieking gasp. It’s right before I witness the wayward skate of my car on a slick patch of ice, as though I’m not living this, and instead witnessing the impending doom on the flat screen of my apartment. My body jerks with the sudden whip of the vehicle as my foot stomps heavily down on the break. I futilely attempt to turn into the skid of the rental car over the slippery asphalt at the side of the road, drifting, headlights first into a ditch. 

XXXX

God my head hurts. And my...my mouth is so...dry. I could use a drink I think to myself, slowly turning my head to the left, then even more slowly to the right. Each turn seeming to grind the pain deeper into my brain and down behind my eyes. Eyes that I can’t seem to fully open. It’s like a weight is forcing them closed, and even as I attempt to will them open against their stubborn clench, I chuckle internally thinking that this is exactly what I mean when I have written in one of my books that someone was heavy lidded. Literally, I surmise as the first few sharp jabs of stark fluorescent light make their way past my lashes, and the protection of my lids. Immediately I wince, blinking and shuddering against the bright assault. 

Where am I? My thumb and index finger find their way to my eyes, their soft massage a jerky flit, delivering only slight comfort. While my muscles are sore and stiff, unwieldly in my staggered command of them, their lethargic movements provide just enough agitation for me to venture to open my eyes again, especially as my interest piques at what feels like wires or tubes tangling against my arm. 

The throbbing pain in my head is not subsiding, but curiosity moves me as I am finally able to take stock of my situation. Tubes in my arm. An IV. Tubes in my nose. Oxygen. Bandages on my forehead. An injury? That would explain the pain in my head, my arms, legs. White blankets, monitors, and the quiet din of voices uttering quick commands, among the hustling squeak of shoes swiftly carrying nurses and doctors, all seemingly too busy to notice me. And I suppose, even as I try to summon my voice from the quiet corner where I seem to have been stashed away in what appears to be an emergency room, their focus being elsewhere is warranted. While I don’t feel great, my thoughts are trying to gather around, and I do recall that we are in the middle of a pandemic. One that has stolen most of this year from us, and seems insistent on carrying away the few weeks that are left. 

For a moment I wonder if that’s why I’m here. Do I have Covid? Almost as quickly as I begin noodling on this, the bandage on my head, and the soft, blurry memory of me deciding on a last-minute trip that sent me on an early morning flight from New York City, to Maine, confirm that I probably don’t have Covid. Since my sister, who I share an apartment with, has been working on the front lines as an ICU doctor, I have been testing for the virus almost as constantly as she has. As a part of our deal for her to not physically restrain me from trying to leave, a move that my bossy older sister would absolutely make good on, I took a test right before I left. I didn’t have it when I tested. Despite my voyage on a nearly empty flight, I don’t think I have contracted the virus. I can’t make out the symptoms of achy breathlessness, or a cough. It’s a comforting conclusion, but does little to help me make sense of what has happened to land me in a hospital bed and not at the small family owned hotel and café that I chose from a few very brief photos on a blog that highlights many of the country’s out of the way spots to quietly explore.

Exploration is exactly what I need right now. Something new. A change of pace. All of the catchphrases I threw out to my sister as I tried to explain why I couldn’t just hunker down and quarantine in our chic Chelsea apartment to finish working on my latest novel over the holiday. Despite being a writer, a pretty good one to boot, I couldn’t find the words past a few banal platitudes to plead away my need for seclusion. How could I confess to her that yet another of my romantic relationships had failed? A romance writer who can’t do romance is more of a paradox than I can get my logic-fixated, super doctor, sister to make sense of. Regardless of our closeness, I didn’t really try. I blamed it all on being weary of the walls of my quarantine palace and needing inspiration to help me over the finish line. To achieve my goal and finish my new book. That she understood. 

Wil, my editor seemed to get it without much explanation, and even offered up his assistant to make the arrangements. He gets why I need to finish this book before the new year, remembering all of that advance money that needs to be recouped. The publicity that has surrounded my meteoric rise in the literature world as a writer whose books are romantic in nature, but are more visceral in their exploration of the nature of love. A Black writer at that, which shouldn’t be a thing, but, for some reason is a big thing. 

Add into it that I’m not a writer by training or education. I’m a writer by accident. Everything about me is sort of an accident if I’m being honest. My parents love to tell the story that my actual existence was an accident, as my mother had her tubes tied after my sister was born, and yet I’m here. By accident. I went to Howard University and obtained a business and accounting degree, and worked a few corporate jobs trying to find my footing. Little joy was to be found in that though. Math is something logical, that makes sense to me. It is complex to some, but its rules are certain. They provide an expected comfort that few of the unpredictables of life can truly offer. But joyous? No, I never found joy in being an accountant. 

Books. Words. That’s where I found love and adventure. In the pages of books, fictional stories, I could find a way to safely experience the tumult of passionate love affairs I would never have in real life. Of tempestuous arguments, making up and breaking up, falling in and out of love, in a way that would never truly risk the quiet comfort of my logical, structured life. Books and words were my escape. My way to be... more than just me. 

Eventually, my love of books, and my lack of love with my chosen career, as well as a wave of corporate downsizing, sent me back to New York, the city of my birth, jobless. Back with my parents, to the Brooklyn brownstone they’ve lived in for as long as I’ve been alive, I felt like a failure. Directionless. The discomfort from that pushed me inward. I’d retreated into books again, which also pushed me to acknowledge a growing frustration with the literary world’s lack of romance and adventure written for and by Black women. There weren’t enough Octavia Butlers or Brenda Jacksons to satiate my need for more. 

On a whim, I took Toni Morrison’s advice to the world, and decided to try and write the book that I wanted to read. Living off my severance and savings, I sequestered myself in my childhood bedroom, Macbook at the ready, and I began to write. Fanfiction. Short stories. Free stories. Whatever I could. I became obsessed, and the comfort of twisting and combining words became formulaic to me, creating a sort of mathematical beauty much the same way that numbers had once done. 

On the suggestion of my parents, who encouraged me to be thankful for the career interruption to actually explore this writing thing, I invested in a few creative writing courses.  Joined a few writing groups. And completely by accident, I found success when one of my classmates who had just procured an editor for themselves, offered to forward to them some of my writing that they had helped critique for me. That’s how Wilton and I found each other. He believed in me just enough to get my work out there when every other editor I had contacted dismissed me saying they weren’t looking for another Terry McMillan, and as though in a dream, my first book was so popular that HBO is turning it into a limited series, with a first look option to do the same with my next book. 

If I can ever complete my next book. Hence the urgency, and why Wil understands my desire to finally finish it. 2020 and Covid have completely drained me of inspiration. Both romantic and otherwise. While readers are clamoring for something to take their minds off of the dreary state of the world, my flailing romantic entanglements in a few non-committal relationships, have dried up the words that once flowed through me. Right now...I got nothing. 

Which is why I needed this time to clear my head, and after seeing the pictures of this small New England inn online, I was hoping that the romantic setting would be just the jumpstart I needed.  

Collecting myself, observing my surroundings, thoughts drift on these details, memories of who I am, anchoring me in a comforting way that the sea of white, and the antiseptic fragrance of the hospital don’t afford, I’m wondering if once again I’ve gotten things all wrong. I’m trying to find my voice and maybe get some help from one of the fast walking nurses, whose faces are obscured by plastic coverings and masks, hands protected in gloves, swishy plastic gowns draped over their scrubs. As my right hand is fumbling at my side for what I hope will be a buzzer to alert someone at the nurses’ station, a smallish man in a white doctor’s jacket rounds the corner towards the dead end of the hall where my bed is pushed into a corner. His voice is high pitched, nervous almost as the cadence of his New England accent tries to keep up with the fast-moving figure at his side. 

Swiping his hand over the few wisps of hair left at the crown of his balding head, the smaller man, the doctor, dwarfed in presence by nearly a foot, ushers his short legs to keep stride with his companion. “Like I was saying, Ashe, she’s pretty banged up.”

“Hm.”

“So, I’m really glad you came to collect her. We just don’t have the space for head wounds, when we have so many on the vent.”

“Hm.”

Halting abruptly at my bedside, the doctor fairly close, while the other at least the prescribed six feet away, the pair seem shocked to find me awake. The doctor probably more so as his eyes widen, but the other man. The tall man. The one, probably well over six feet, who smells of the very same sooty, wooden ash, that his companion called him by? His eyes barely betray him, only narrowing, crinkling slightly at the corners. Sucking in a long breath, this man, Ashe, brings with him the masculine musk of pine and snow, dusky and fragrant on his heavy brown coat. That’s another clue I don’t have Covid. My sense of smell is definitely intact as my nose savors the scent of him. This tall man, bringing with him the very essence of a New England winter. Inching my head back ever so gently, sweeping my eyes up, then back down, I take him in. His head dons a wool beanie, pulled low, protecting his forehead and ears, though a few wayward wispy curls, dark in color, have escaped along the sides. A thick beard peeks from behind the mask that covers his lips and jaws, matching his hair’s dark chestnut color. The obscuring of his face and the continuity of the warm browns of his coat, hair, and beard forces me to take note of the sharp, coolness of his sapphire blue eyes.

“Ma’am.” The doctor greets me, nodding his head as he pushes his foggy glasses up his long nose that is also covered by a white mask. 

“Hello.”

“Ma’am, Ms. Baines, I’m Dr. Dennis. I’m glad you are finally awake.” Continuing to nod, excitability colors the quickness of the small doctor’s words as his bushy eyebrows move up and down with each word. 

Focusing in on the doctor, I can’t help but let my gaze swiftly drift back to the man with him, if only for a minute. His presence is confusing, but there is something about him that continues to magnetically draw my attention back to him, despite the doctor addressing me, and the man’s watchful silence. He doesn’t fit in here with his stoic, wide stance. His hands deep in his jacket pockets. 

Licking at my lips, even though my mouth is dry, I compel them to say something. “Ok.” Ok? That’s it? Immediately I feel... I don’t know, stupid, I guess. I’m a writer. Words are my life, and the best I could come up with is...ok? 

“And you’re talking now. That’s very good. We were a little worried about you. You had a nasty accident out there on Vaughn Road. Down by the Piscataquls River. Emergency squad found your car in a ditch. You hit your head pretty good on the driver’s side window.” Gesturing towards the bandage on the left side of my forehead.

“Ok.” 

Tilting his head at my use of the brief one-word response, Dr. Dennis continues, “Gathered you’re not from around here?”

“Ok.”

“This here is Ashe.” The doctor points towards the man with him, whose dark gaze has not once wavered from his unnerving study of my face. As though he’s also trying to make sense of me, the same way I’m doing to him. Except, his consumption of me makes me self-conscious. Shy, almost embarrassed by what this stranger might be thinking of me, my predicament. On the other hand, he seems to be perfectly fine with my brief glances his way. Perhaps he’s used to the inspection of people, given his height and size? “The police found your purse with your identification, and a printout for a reservation at his hotel. The King’s Mill Inn?”

“Ok.”

Narrowing his eyes at me, Dr. Dennis’s posture softens as he pulls on a pair of latex gloves that seem to have materialized from thin air. He leans a little closer and uses that light thing all doctors seem to have on them at any given time, to stare into my eyes. Blinking rapidly at the bright intrusion, I can’t help but feel irritated at his less than hospitable approach. 

Presumably Dr. Dennis senses my displeasure, and apologizes. “Sorry about that. Your answers made me wonder if you didn’t still have a slight concussion.”

“Charles, what’s the plan here?” A deep grumbled question finally comes from the quiet stranger. 

Standing erect, and crossing his arms, Dr. Dennis takes a moment to gather his thoughts. “Well...Ashe, like I said, she does have a reservation. So, if you can collect her. Let her rest a bit at the inn, that would help us out down here. Resources are real tight with Covid using up all we have.”

“Hm.”

“That alright with you, Ms. Baines? You might have some body soreness, headache, some cognitive delay. I suspect you do still have a concussion, but there’s not a lot more we can do for you here.”

Clearing my throat, my voice finally comes to me a bit more fully. “Where is here?”

“Northern Light Mayo Hospital. In Maine.”

“I’m still in Maine?”

“What are you doing here? In Maine?” Again, the man named Ashe breaks through the discussion with his terse grumbles, rattling off his brusque questions.

“Ashe...” Dr. Dennis mutters, an admonishing grimace turned his way.

“Uh...”

Patting at my hand, the rubbery latex of the doctor’s glove isn’t nearly as comforting as I’m sure he intended it to be. “Everything will be ok. You just need some time to rest. A heavy snowstorm is here, projected to last through Thanksgiving. Makes sense for you to use that reservation you had at The King’s Mill Inn and get yourself well before heading back home. You can safely quarantine there until then, since you have to stay put for fourteen days anyway.”

Stone still, a slight tilt of his head his only movement, the man named Ashe enters the conversation again. “Where is that? Home?”

“Now, Ashe, your mother assured me that your family would honor Ms. Baines’s reservation and welcome her for the full two weeks of her reservation. Welcome her, Ashe. Welcome. Got that?” Pointing his finger his way, I can tell, as probably can Ashe, that Dr. Dennis will not allow any further argument. And at that moment, as some mild confusion still clouds my brain, and stills my tongue, I am thankful for the small doctor. For his kind, round face, and his brief scolding of the tall man who seems to be taking me with him, but who also seems quite unhappy about it. 

“Hm.” Is all Ashe gives him in response, just as he turns on his heels and begins walking back up the hallway and out of sight. 

Swiveling back to face me, Dr. Dennis offers a few final words. “Him and his mother have been recently tested for Covid, as have you. And don’t worry, Ashe’s bark is much worse than his bite. You’ll be safe and well cared for at the inn. And appreciated. There haven’t been many tourists this year. The inn can use a paying guest.”

“Ok.” I smile, still a little unsure, but feeling more at ease at the doctor’s soft-spoken assurance. 

“Good. Now let’s get you discharged.”

XXXX

“Here is her purse, laptop bag, and the suitcase the police found in her car. Ms. Baines, you call and ask for me if you have any problems, and before you head back home, you stop in here and let me take a look at you. Two weeks. No flying or traveling until I clear you first. Fair enough?” Dr. Dennis asks as he hands my things off to Ashe, and helps me from the wheelchair and up into the pickup truck that Ashe has pulled up to the front of the small hospital. 

“Yes.”

“Well alright. Ashe, take it easy, and have your mother call me, please. Got that?”

“Mmhm.”

“Fair enough.” Dr. Dennis adds with finality, giving a small pat to the passenger side door as he secures it closed. Something in me, a melancholy that I don’t quite understand, makes me nervous about my departure. About leaving behind the kind, excitability of Dr. Dennis, for the gruff, brooding of Ashe. Trading one stranger for another. 

Ashe frowns through the window at the doctor, and gives him a brief wave as he pulls away from the curb. Wordless, his face is still hidden from me behind the white mask, same as mine as I made my way being wheeled through the hospital in a pair of scratchy, oversized sweats, to be discharged from the only safety I’ve known since waking. Dr. Dennis swears I will be ok going with him, but the distrust evident in his questions and stoic presence make me feel unwelcome. Regardless, as the good doctor said, I have few choices as the hospital needs their resources for their swelling number of sick Covid patients. My little concussion seems minor in comparison to the virus that has thrown the whole world into chaos. 

With only the dusting of thick, white snowflakes brushing against the pickup truck’s windshield, and crunching beneath its tires, Ashe directs the vehicle with its heated leather seats, and warmed air, only a few short minutes through the center of the small New England town. Bringing the truck to a stop in the parking lot of a large white building with numerous, rectangular paned windows, directly around the corner from the hospital, Ashe shifts to park then turns to face me. Neither of us speak at first. I don’t know why he doesn’t, but I simply cannot. I’m not even sure what to say to break the thick metaphorical ice that my very presence seems to have built between us. I don’t know him. He doesn’t know me. And yet here we are. So, if I’m going to be stuck here for a few weeks, I guess I should try...something. 

Searching for words, I settle on something innocuous, safe. “So, uh, Dr. Dennis said this place used to be an actual mill?” I swallow my nerves and send up a thankful prayer for the ibuprofen the doctor gave me at the hospital before I left, numbing some of the pain in my head, allowing me to think a little straighter now. Form a few more words. 

Those eyes of his, a blue so dark, they almost seem black, focus on me, angling his eyebrows over the mask that still dons his face. “What are you doing here?” If I didn’t know better, if his eyes weren’t covering my face, assessing me, the flat tone of his heavy voice would make him seem disinterested. His words on the other hand, make it very clear that he is interested. 

Taken aback, his question borders on rude and I can’t help but pull my whole body back slightly, clinging to the armrest on the door. “What?”

Just as he seems to be raring up to continue his line of questioning, I take notice of a figure hurriedly trying to pull open my car door. After a flurry of knocks on the window, Ashe unlocks the doors, and immediately I’m smacked by the cold blustery punch of the snow and wind. 

“Oh Lord! Look at you! I was wondering what was taking you so long to get her back here.”  Gloved hands reach for me, pulling me into the cold puff of a winter coat. “Come on, honey. It’s too cold for you to be out here in this snow in your condition! Ashe, get her things!” Gently ordering both Ashe and me, this tall woman, swaddled in layers, throws a thick blanket over me and grasps my hand, walking me up a few steps and into the warmth of the inn.

Blowing out a long breath, my head once again spinning a little, probably from the onslaught of cold and movement from one place to the next, I run my hand over the trim curls of my hair. 

“Here, sit here. I have some hot chocolate for you. And soup! I just made the afternoon lunch. You like beer and cheddar soup?” she nods encouragingly at me, as though it’s purely inconceivable that I wouldn’t like beer and cheddar soup.

Pulling the coat tightly around my form, clasping it in the front, I allow myself the sensation of a few shivers to try and knock off the remnant of the chilling cold. “I- I’ve never had it.”

She tosses her coat and hat on to a rack back by the front door, and pulls her mask from her face, just as Ashe enters, carrying my purse, laptop bag, and suitcase in one large gloved hand, easily as though they weigh nothing. “Ashe, take those upstairs to 202.”

“202? Why 202?” he questions, incredulity coloring his hard-spoken words. This man and his questions, I think to myself, curious of why he has a problem with me being in room 202. 

“Cause I said so.” Turning to face him head on, she tucks her long arms at her side, fists pressing into her lean hips. “That’s the only guestroom with a fireplace. She’s gonna need it. You see this storm.”

“But-”

“Don’t question me, boy. 202. Then come back and get you some lunch. Thaw your bones.” She lightly scolds with a bright smile, the lilt of a New England accent heavy in her commands, twisting all of her ‘a’ sounds into ‘ahs’ with a rising inflection so different from the New York accent I’m used to. Instantly, I decide that not only do I find her accent cute, but her command of Ashe’s surliness, and her motherly softness towards me, endears me to her. 

Taking his light reprimand with the same dour grumble that he seems to approach everything, Ashe snatches his hat from his head, and rustles off his coat, dropping them both onto the same rack by the door. He kicks his large booted feet onto the rug at the door a few times, then takes off towards the stairs. Without the armor of his coat and hat, the hulking presence of Ashe is almost overwhelming. Not in a bad way though. Not at all. In a truly disarming way, I decide that the man is gorgeous. Even though I can’t fully get a good look at him just yet, what I can make out in the distance between us, is more than I expected.

Those few curls of hair I could make out from the edges of his hat, now cover his head in wild swaths of medium length silk across his forehead and over his ears. The brush of his beard, full and thick, enticingly frames his lips. Pinkish lips, that curl with a churlish smirk at one corner, tugging at the plushness of his bottom lip. And god help me, his body, tall, wide and thick, reminds me of the towering bulk of the tree he’s named after. 

Watching his ascent, the woman, who I assume is his mother that the doctor spoke of, allows a grin to pull at the corners of her own mouth in a less petulant way than her son’s. I can only try my hardest not to stare in full appreciation at her handsome son, permitting my eyes to dart back to follow the stomp of his large feet up the stairs, and dash away hoping to not be caught ogling. 

Swiveling her gaze from where Ashe has disappeared, she turns her eyes back towards where I’m seated in the lounge area, just off to the right of what I can see is the kitchen. Without her large coat and hat on, I can now get a better look at her. She’s tall as well, willowy even as her thin body, with its long limbs, moves fluidly, easily about this space as though she has it memorized. Has glided many times across these dark cherry wood floors, traversed the plush white coach, and classic red and blue wingback chairs. Warmed innumerable hours by the crackling flames of the fireplace, and welcomed plenty of guests to the coziness of the traditionally designed inn, that screams New England. Her hair is graying at the roots, betraying the brunette locks that she brushes back and away from her face. As she approaches me, her smile grows, its genuine kindness apparent in the way it reaches the corners of her blue eyes, much in the same way displeasure seems to crinkle those same lines on her son’s face.

“Come with me.” Tilting her head towards the kitchen, she moves past me, beckoning me to follow. 

Raising from the comfort of the couch, I leave behind the heat of the front room for the cozy warmth of the kitchen and café portion of the inn, taking in the welcoming scent of fresh baked bread and coffee. Taking a seat at the pub height table by one of the many windows facing the street, I breathe in the grand bowl of soup, and steaming mug of hot chocolate placed neatly in front of me. Not until this very moment, when my stomach grumbles at the thought of eating, and the sight of the food and drink, did I realize how hungry I was. 

Setting down her own bowl, and mug, my companion rests on the stool across the table. We eat in silence. My gaze scans the café, taking note of another fireplace behind me that crackles, and seems to relax the stiffness that has set into my muscles, probably from my stay in the hospital. To the right of me, on the other side of the two rows of tables like the one I’m seated at, there is a bar of sorts with a top that matches the whitewashed wood that decorates much of the small eatery, from the exposed beams above, to the trim of the numerous windows. Behind the bar is a spacious open kitchen with a couple of ovens embedded in the walls. At the end of the bar, and towards the very front, is a case full of baked goods, wired stands with numerous knick-knacks and souvenirs, and the cash register. Like my lunch companion, I decide that I like this place, and the food even better. As that thought settles in my brain, and I sip down another spoonful of soup, I offer a contented smile of gratitude across the table. 

Setting the wide mouthed mug she drinks from down on the table, she easily breaks the silence that has colored our lunch until now, “Concussion, huh?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Call me Eva, honey.”

“Eva.” I offer in response, swallowing down my nerves. “Yes, a concussion.”

“From a car accident. Right?”

“That’s what the doctor said. I don’t- I don’t quite remember all of it. He said it’s been a few days since they brought me in.” I answer, self-consciously pressing my fingers lightly to the bandages sheltering the wounds on my forehead, then attempting to smooth my short-cropped curls. Barely daring to catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror while I dressed in the clothes offered to me by the hospital to replace my gown, which the nurse told me took the place of the clothes cut from my battered body upon arrival in the emergency room, I know I look a mess. 

Her gaze softens in a motherly way as she watches me for a bit, then allows what appears to be a somewhat sad smile to overcome her lips, barely raising her cheeks. Cheeks that don’t hold the round fullness that my mother’s do, but that do showcase stunning bone structure in a heart shaped face, that calls to mind a dark-haired supermodel I’ve seen in old magazines. Eva’s still beautiful, and I can see in the brilliant blue of her eyes, exactly where her son gets his almost pretty, good looks. 

Reaching her hand across the table to gently pat my own, she tilts her head, and on a nod offers, “I see. Well it seems you had a reservation here for two weeks. Expected you two days ago, but I’ll honor the two weeks to allow for the quarantine.”

“Thank you,” I nod, agreeing to her terms. 

“And though this is all somewhat odd, we’re happy to have you.”

Angling my head a bit at her use of the word ‘odd’, I decide to ignore it and try to keep our lunch conversation even keeled. Even though the writer in me wants to dig. To understand. That word triggers something deeper, a bigger story than how everything seems on the surface. But, sometimes when I’m writing a story, it doesn’t pay to tell everything upfront. It’s more interesting to let it play itself out. Holds the reader’s attention. And so, employing a bit of my own literary strategy, I will allow this story to unfold organically and I won’t push for that something deeper. At least not yet. 

“I appreciate your hospitality.” Edging down to take in another spoonful of the soup, my mouth is instantly warmed with the delicious cheesy goodness. On an uncontrollable moan of appreciation, I offer a verbal compliment, “It’s good.”

“Thank you,” That same pallid smile barely graces her thin lips, as she blinks at me, working her mouth in a way that seems to hint at her unwillingness to allow my dismissal of her observation of me being here as odd. Eva appears to be struggling with following my lead on how to proceed. Slouching back in her chair, then leaning forward, her dark eyebrows angle, then lift high on her forehead as what are probably a million unasked questions dance across her face. Finally, she threads her fingers together on the table in front of her, and delicately forms her words, “I don’t want to pry, but... we aren’t usually open this late in the season. Only staying open this year to hopefully get a few holiday guests looking for a kind of secluded getaway, to tide us over till spring. Till hopefully this awful virus is gone, or there’s a vaccine. Something. And well, we don’t get a lot of Black visitors-”

“Oh!”

At attention by my response to her reference of my skin color, her back goes ramrod straight, hands waiving frantically about, features alarmed by the offense she’s caused. “I’m sorry! I don’t mean nothing by it, just, curious about how you come to be here is all.”

“Well...”

“At this time of the year. In Maine. Right?”

“Right...” Gulping a swallow of the warm chocolate, steeped in a white mug, accompanied by miniature marshmallows, for some reason I struggle to put together the practiced words of a writer that would explain my presence here. Of course, this is odd to Eva and Ashe. I’m so used to New York and occasionally LA. My bi-coastal life as a writer, often taking me back and forth between the two multicultural enclaves. My world is usually filled with faces and features of a multitude of shades and shapes. I suppose even as I asked Wilton and his assistant to schedule my getaway, and I boarded a plane with my itinerary and destination for Maine in mind, my spoiled brain didn’t really conceive of my presence being odd. Even in a pandemic. And I guess that also shows how absorbed in my own personal drama with Preston I had become. Did I really think me showing up in lily-white Maine during a pandemic wouldn’t be considered ‘odd’?

Some unknown thing, perhaps an entitled stubbornness that us New Yorkers have, often thinking we set the tone for the world, stills my brain from grasping the words and phrases I have employed many times over my career. Words that should come, but that my recent bout of writer’s block should tell me different. Maybe it’s her mention of my color that throws me off my game? And even as I want to say something my brain won’t stop clicking through the maze of things I could say. Should say. I can’t put my finger on what causes the puzzle in my brain, but I do know that it’s not like me to leave a question, a challenge, unanswered, so I try to give her something. “I-”

Shaking her head quickly, as though she has realized that my silence may signal that she has offended me more deeply than her apology would account for, Eva reaches out to me again, this time gripping my hand softly. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. We’re thankful you’re here. And that we can share this time together. It’s such an odd time for everyone, isn’t it? Quarantine.”

“Yes, I think so.” I answer, finding it easy to give her the truth of that response, and feeling encouraged in her use of the word ‘thankful’. You don’t hear it often right now, with things so crazy, turbulent. The pandemic. Politics. This car accident that has injured my body and somewhat derailed my vacation. Everything seems to be upside down, and it’s difficult to find a speck of happiness. Of something, anything, to be thankful for. Her use of the word humbles me, reminds me of where we all are right now and pulls me into myself, and away from the off handed challenge of her mentioning my color.

“We’re doing everything we can here. Social distancing from everyone but a few friends and suppliers for the inn. Dr. Dennis makes sure we are tested frequently. No other visitors here. You’ll have the place to yourself outside of Ashe and me. This is a good place for you to get well. We’ll see to it.” She nods in that reassuring, motherly way she did earlier, confirming what must be a foregone agreement on my part, and a final affirmation to end our chat.

Eva returns to sipping from her mug and doesn’t try to foster much more conversation. Instead of more polite chit chat, she gives me a little space, and simply the comfort of food and company, as we both watch the snow fall, covering the world in white.

XXXX

Gently I climb the stairs, key that Eva gave me in hand, stopping at the wooden door with ‘202’ adorned across it in small brass numbers. Just as I reach for the knob, the door rushes open. Caught off guard but pushing forward with my palms out in front of me as though to ward off whatever is coming from the room, I’m met with the scent of pine and snow again. And now I can even make out, with my hands resting on his wide, firm chest, the accompanying scent of sandalwood. 

“Oh! I’m sorry.” The apology falls from my lips, stark surprise at the warmth of him under my palms, pushing me in an awkward jerk backwards, tripping over my own feet. Losing my footing, I’m bracing for the expected impact of finding my bruised body on the floor, instead, I’m instantly steadied. Ashe circles both of my closely crossed wrists in one hand, his other hand spread across my back, ushering me securely against him and saving me from a certain crash onto the hard wood floors. 

“Don’t fall! Have my mother and the doctor cross at me for no reason. Let me help you.” Ashe’s deep voice booms, commanding me to stay close to him. An order that I’m more than willing to follow as he gently pulls me into the guestroom.

Closing my eyes, I can’t help but take a moment. This is the closest I have been to Ashe since our stilted ride from the hospital. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of catching my appraisal of his good looks, but it’s hard to hide, even with me being probably a half a foot shorter than he is. I cannot help myself, but I do try to hide it and jut my eyes away from his as he’s studying me, blue gaze softly dancing over my face. My body. Creating a warmth in my core that has nothing to do with the fireplace I notice already ablaze in the guest room. I admit to myself, even if I don’t want to, that this discourteous, grumbly, bear of a man is more than just handsome. Or even pretty. He’s sexy. 

It’s in the stretch of his cream-colored Henley expanding across his chest, while tufts of dark hair escape at the collar, and drift across his heavily veined forearms that peek out from the upward push of his shirtsleeves. It’s the thick, chocolate locks that are probably used to being a little shorter, but escape the brush of them behind his ears, untamed and flirting with his thick eyebrows. And that beard. It’s a bramble, a thicket of brown hair, that rakishly covers his jaws, making me want to live in this moment a little longer. Nestle into his manliness. 

But the pull of his sexiness is brief, disappearing in the short clearing of his throat, and the release of his mighty hands from my body. I can feel myself almost wilt under his release, the separation so sudden. 

“This is your room. I started the fire. I’ve brought your things.” Nodding behind me to the fireplace, then with his thumb, Ashe gestures over his shoulder and towards the considerable four poster, brass bed where my things rest on a bench near the footboard. His voice loses some of the prickly churning it held in his earlier inquisition of me. Now its lowered to a rolling bass that oozes thick like honey. Blinking slowly, his sooty eyelashes, unnecessarily long, sweep along the tops of his cheeks. “You should rest. You’re still unsteady. Probably from the uh... the concussion.”

Wiping my hands over my heated face, a no-no these days, I appreciate the respite it provides. A moment to collect myself, as I thank my parents for gifting me with the darkness of my skin that shelters me from the embarrassment of turning red right now. “Ah, yeah. Yes. Thank you, for bringing them up.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Baines. If you need anything press 1 on the phone, that will get you to the phone downstairs. I’m also at the other end of the hall. I’ll take care of whatever you need.” 

Side stepping me, his heavy booted footsteps causing the wooden floorboards to creak under his muscular body, Ashe turns away from me, leaving me behind as he heads out of the door and towards the stairs. For some reason, though he hasn’t been the most welcoming until now, his mother’s words as well as his offer to take care of what I need settle into my brain.

Taking a few steps, careful to remember his direction to remain steady on my feet, I follow after him, stopping him before his foot hits the stairs. 

“Hey, Ashe. Um, you can call me Raven.”

“Raven?”

“Yeah.”

“Raven.” He repeats, my name tumbling in a heavy rumble that seems to start deep in his chest. Dragging his bottom lip between his teeth, Ashe blinks a few times, then travels his gaze over my form. From my face to my feet then back. “Very pretty.” He compliments, a pleased grin arching those pink lips of his. Without another word, he turns back to head down the steps.